ALAS, BABYLON

Doom-minded and Cassandra-speaking, this author, who touched off the play in Mr. Adam in comic vein, and continued his warnings in Forbidden Area (1956) here looks at an all-out bombing that freezes and contaminates most of the United States. What happens to Fort Repose in central Florida- which escapes the worst -- becomes an account of survival when, slowly learning that all props are out from under, some few citizens work out a make-do, or die, program. Heading up a colony that manages to exist is Randolph Bragg, whose Air Force brother gives him the word and the little chance to prepare for the disaster of Russian attack, and, with his brother's wife and children, some neighbors -- white and black -- he finds out many ways to circumvent encroaching death. Death through lack of medicine, electricity, communications, through the threats of epidemic, mob attack, highway marauding, decline of authority and the sudden regression that results from the loss of ""civilization"". Bragg's efforts -- and those of his group -- pull them through when yesterday's history becomes archaic and changed rules must govern changed conditions. When hope comes -- of rescue and victory -- does it matter -- to those who have survived? Contemporary Robinson-Crusoeing.